Tag Archives: Orwell

While we have been commemorating the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, it is now exactly 200 years since the UK and USA signed the Treaty of Ghent signaling the end to the War of 1812 and the establishment in British eyes of American equality, firm agreement on borders and freedom to sail the seas and an agreement to seek the end of slave trafficking. The Treaty was deemed to be “an honourable peace” for the United States that many believe was a rallying call to its citizens – honourably exiting the War with firm borders and a fundamental view of nationhood. The UK and USA have been at peace (outside the odd skirmish) for 200 years and “The Star Spangled Banner” (written in 1814 to commemorate the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Chesapeake Bay by the Royal Navy) remains the anthem of the USA to this day – while its lyrics remain constant:

“And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air”

During those 200 years, however, the world has been stricken with world wars and regional conflicts that rewrote borders almost everywhere. We live now with the consequences of borders drawn up by Empires that bore very little resemblance to the needs of the people within them. In many countries in Africa and Asia, nations were brought into being that collected many different peoples. In Africa, these people were then subjected to rulers that grouped them into so-called tribes (that Fukuyama describes as newly created) and have been the cause of much bloodshed since then. Nigeria, for example, was never a nation until it was created by the British and the Muslim north and Christian south are uneasy bedfellows.

21st Century Nationhood

The 21st Century offers both great opportunities and great risks. The nations that have been established during those last 200 years may, in many cases, bear little resemblance even after all those years to the people that live there.

We see this in nations like Ukraine where Russia is attempting destabilization through the indigenous Russian populations in the East.

We see this in a country like Nigeria – split between a Muslim north and a mainly Christian south.

We see this throughout the Middle East where the so-called Islamic State (IS) calls for a caliphate and an end to the “arbitrary” borders brought in by the British and others after the First World War, where Sunni and Shia are pitted against each other.

We see it in many African states, where colonial rulers attempted to develop states which had not existed before and where definition by nation is still hugely misunderstood.

We see it in China where Tibet has long wanted its independence and where the Uighurs still rally against Han domination.

We see it even in western Europe where, for example, the Scots only narrowly decided to remain in the UK after a referendum, where the Catalans are keen to split from Spain and where many northern Italians yearn to split from the under-developed and relatively ungovernable south.

We saw it in the Soviet Union which broke up into states that were better aligned;

We saw it as Yugoslavia split.

We saw it as Czechoslovakia split.

Multi-National groupings

The 21st Century has, however, witnessed a rapid drive to globalism so that the inter-relationships of countries with others are more complicated than ever. Whether it is China in Africa or the USA in Central America, leading economies are progressively more dependent on others.

This is now a world where multi-national companies are in competitive positions with nations. Maybe not in the same way that the British East India Company – which still had its monopoly intact at the time of the Treaty of Ghent in 1812 – but where agreements under way such as TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) between the EU and USA, companies are expanding their rights to take Governments to court under the ISDS – investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. Several countries (such as South Africa and Indonesia) are now opting out of such arrangements which provide an equality between corporations and governments that could well be said to be anti-democratic.

Beyond companies, nations are increasingly engaged in arenas such as the UN, EU, NAFTA, African Union, ASEAN and multitudes of other multi-national engagement devices.

With the rise of the internet and social media, it is also far easier for individuals from opposite sides of the world to group together and do so within seconds.

Orwell posited three regional groupings with continuous warfare in his “1984”. 66 years on from when that book was written, the bipolar world of the US and Soviet Union became the unipolar world of the USA and now sees the rise of China fighting for prime position economically and others fighting for the next division placings within a world of fast communication and many forms of potential divisiveness and opportunities for engagement.

Big Brother may well be in place but it is more two-way as Snowden recently showed. As long as there remains a free press and the use of the internet is available, this will continue in ways that Orwell did not foresee (outside of states like North Korea and, at a lower level, China).

Shifting sands

It is not just in the Middle East that the sands shift as IS is fought by the Kurds and local national forces.

Sands continuously shift throughout the world as people group around a variety of causes, ideas and faiths and behind a variety of organisations and individuals. In a complex world, change is constant as our experiences evolve. However, it is clear that nations can no longer hide within themselves – each nation is exposed externally and internally as communication systems expand.

It took several weeks for the fact that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed to be relayed to those in the USA still fighting and dying.

Now, drones don’t just provide the means to inflict missiles on enemies but also provide data and information within milliseconds. Mobile phones provide instant photos and videos worldwide. The so-called Arab Spring was clearly accelerated by such media and took Middle Eastern governments by surprise as a result of that speed. In Tunisia, the results have been impressive for democracy even if elsewhere the forces for vested interests have re-emerged.

We do not know how humans will be organized in 200 years’ time. Issues like the environment and global warming will take precedence as the real (rather than promised) effects bite. These and other impacts will provide a changing environment that will, as always, require the most from human ingenuity. As we would appear to the world of 1814, the world of 2214 will feel very different to now – even if we can assume that technology will maintain our enjoyment of the planet.

But, what we assume to be stable – the nations that we are part of – will undoubtedly shift over this century and beyond. As rapid and increasingly ubiquitous communications become ever more the norm for most of us, and, after what may be a long period of difficult adjustment, there could be a tendency towards a better understanding of humanity beyond national boundaries and of our place on this planet.

While the Treaty of Ghent is hardly a cause of much celebration and it has been almost forgotten amongst the sounds of WWI commemorations, it was significant in that it signaled friendly relations between the most prosperous nation on earth at the time (the UK) and its wayward child (the USA) – two “united” nations that remain and prosper 200 years later – much of that owing to their “special” relationship that has matured during that time.

Today, 24th December, 2014, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) comes into effect. Could this be the positive event that will be celebrated 200 years from now? That Treaty has been signed up to by 130 nations – not even signed by Russia and China and still to be ratified by one of the signatories to the Treaty of Ghent – the USA. It took several months for the ratification of that Treaty by the US Senate in 2015 – owing mainly to communication delays. There is no such excuse in 2014/15. Let the ATT not be delayed any further – let nations not be swayed by the arms companies.

For now – let’s all enjoy the festive season and my best wishes for 2015!

There is a crisis of confidence in elected and unelected officialdom across the planet.

Whether we watch the scenes from Egypt, Brazil and Turkey or read of the horrendous problems at Morecambe and Thamesmead closer to home along with the allegations surrounding the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and government, as we witness elections in the UK and US attracting less and less voters at each election, it becomes ever clearer that confidence in those that have power has been lost.

Hundreds of years ago, when most believed that those in power were born to have it and exercise it and when information was so scarce, lack of confidence in the powerful would erupt only at times into outright hostility. If the French Revolution could be considered an example of such hostility, contrast that to the relative minimalism of 1968 or the banlieue rioting of a few years ago.

Today, the volcano is not sleeping but constantly rumbling with disquiet that breaks out not necessarily in revolution but in people power as shown by Erdem Gunduz’s standing man (duran adam) in Istanbul.

We are more knowledgeable and educated but we are no less intolerant and the expectation is more widespread. So, the rumbling goes on and our politicians – tied to their 19th Century establishments of power – are completely nonplussed and have no idea how to react.

The Power over Information

There are waves of contention that sweep across the centuries.

In the West, the political concepts of the 18th Century and before were founded often on religion and religious intolerance and rising nationalism – this remains the root cause of many conflicts in the Middle East still;

those of the 19th Century on nationalism;

those of the 20th Century on dogma – fascism / nazi-ism, socialism, communism;

the 21st Century still has resonances of all those centuries and many countries remain hidebound by the blood-thirst of years gone by.

However, each century brings its own challenges while technology does much to change our thinking and understanding. In Europe, the invention of the printing press enabled the spread of knowledge beyond the priests and monks who kept power through their monopoly of the printed word.

In the eighteenth century, Thomas Paine brought his word to the attention of the masses through documents like the Rights of Man that fuelled rebellion in the USA and France.

Writers like Dickens in the 19th Century caused the wealthy to respond to the crimes committed against the poor of London and the South of England – leading to the philanthropic movement.

This century’s challenge is about the battle between mass information centralism and decentralism caused by the Internet and cheaper and cheaper forms of computer and mobile technology. It is driven by the extraordinary advances in information, learning and education for most sectors of the world. It is driven by the power that such information provides and the desire of those in power to retain it.

Edward Snowden’s rebellion is about information and the central authority of the National Security Association in the USA to plough information furrows in search of masses of data (see excellent article by Kenneth Roth). Technology now allows so much information to be gathered that those in power’s natural default is to take it. Snowden rebelled in the way he thought right – his own 21st Century revolution in the same way that Wikileaks did or Bradley Manning attempted – their own duran adam.

Elsewhere, it is the gaining of information that empowers those who rebel against what they see as the wrong use of power. From radio to TV and to the internet and social networks, information in the hands of increasingly better educated citizens means that their concerns can be better disseminated and groups can more easily coalesce. From the printing press to the telegraph and now to social networks running on mobile phones, the acquisition of knowledge and the crowd forming opportunities available (online and offline) challenge authorities worldwide. In Turkey, The Hurriyet Daily, in one comment piece, headlined: ‘Twitter versus Prime Minister Erdogan’. The “democratic coup” in Egypt was fuelled by the rapid dissemination of information to a population where many tired quickly of the deceit of power.

The Long Tail and “Power Law”

With the extraordinary advances in technology and information, society is splitting into those that have control over it and those that don’t. This is seen clearly in the financial crash of 2007/8. Leading up to this, the banks that control much of the information upon which our economies rely were able to manipulate that information and thereby also manipulate the so-called analysts and quality assurance organisations (like the ratings agencies – Moody’s, S&P and Fitch). They do so still.

The increasing use of social networks and of online systems puts the mass of information in the hands of governments and large corporations. Big data (metadata) means that individual citizens are merely part of the “long tail”, while those who run the large corporations remain independent. There are individuals and there is the long tail. They call the long tail the outcome of a power law – no better description.

Orwell saw this “power law” clearly in his “1984” but could not foresee the means that would be available to those who stand at the top of the big data (as opposed to those who stand beneath or within it). There is a real danger that as society becomes more separated by data collection, we will see confidence in institutions and governance erode progressively more – a leaking of trust that is already weak.

The reason for this is that those within the long tail, despite being so far away from the centre, still have access to large amounts of data – just not in a controlling manner as individuals. This access means that they understand the problems they are facing much more than the militants of previous centuries.

The Information Revolution

Jaron Lanier – a leading thinker on information systems and a pioneer of virtual reality – has written in “Who Owns the Future?” about the destruction of the middle class and the propensity of information systems to force us into the long tail.

The information revolution may not be the stable process that we want it to be. It may be that independent revolutions (like those of Snowden or Bradley Manning) become more common as the common man and woman show their own discontent with the world of big data.

Duran adam – standing man – is one individual silently standing up against centralized power – just like those at Tiananmen Square or Tahrir Square. This stand requires some thought because while the situation in Turkey can be improved by government listening to its people, the answer to the information problem is less clear – even if both require huge changes in thinking.

On the problem in Turkey, the issue is an old one (or a group of old ones): secular versus religious, centralized versus real democracy. In Egypt, it is similar (if more violent).

In the era of big data, the problem that Edward Snowden exposed is the same one that exists outside of the Internet – that centralized power with control of information is often corruptive. At a more micro level, that is why the Morecambe Bay hospitals issue (where the CQC is alleged to have suppressed a damning report on care in hospitals -that is claimed by campaigners such as James Titcombe – who lost his nine-day old baby son in that hospital – to have caused loss of life) is similar to Edward Snowden’s concerns.

Power over information – such as at the CQC – can be wholly corruptive. This provides a glimpse into the potential solutions – which are transparency and access to information. It always was, of course, but larger organisations like the NHS (the UK’s National Health Service) easily become power drunk (especially in a secretive nation like the UK). The same is true in Turkey and Egypt. The same is true at the NSA. This power relies on information.

The release valves are (1) transparency – the same transparency called for in dictatorships where money is looted on a grand scale; (2) access to data – sharing between the centre and the long tail.

It is not too simplistic to say that transparency and data access are at the heart of the problem in the information battles of the 21st Century. Power centres based on information only function because they have more information than those outside their circle.

This has been so throughout history – from before Pheidippides and his Marathon run to Rothschild and his use of advance information to be the first to know (and profit from) Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Advanced democracies now need to take the next step – the provision of information as the default and a requirement on all governments and companies to make information available unless they can justify the opposite.

The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 debated the issue of transparency this week – endeavouring to determine where the boundaries were. David Leigh – formerly of the Guardian argued well for greater access of information for ordinary citizens.

Diane Coyle in “The Economics of Enough” proposed experiments in the use of the Internet to engage citizens. We already have this. Organisations like Avaaz, Witness and 38 Degrees are already providing experiments. These are not-for-profits set up to access information – including much user-generated content – to create access for citizens and pressure on government and companies. Nowhere in Diane Coyle’s book does it mention the opportunities created by such organisations – Government, public sector and corporations have so much power that top economists like her do not consider the power of citizens to collaborate that already exists.

The problem is that individually lobbyist activities like the three mentioned address the power of the Internet to pursue specific causes – often not the root cause of the Power Law over Information. Those like Wikileaks attack the issue head-on – quite some experiment that has seen Julian Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for over a year. The experiments with the Internet – bringing information and access to information to citizens – is under way. We are all already part of it: active or passive.

The question is whether the Long Tail of Information gets to be wagged.